Friday after work I called the dropzone and asked if they were still flying. They told me they had a load going now and might be able to get one more in, so I drove over. After a bit of skydiver-wrangling, they managed to pull together another load. I told them I wanted to do a high pull and they said it'd be OK as long as we went NOW, which we did.

So I'm the last one out of the plane at 11,800 feet, get stable and pull, fully deployed at 10600 feet with about 15 minutes of sunlight left. It was AMAZING! Actually the first thing out of my mouth was "Oh my GOD! This is AMAZING!" The second thing out of my mouth was "Oh my GOD this is COLD!" ha ha ha! But I didn't mind! It was a beautiful ride down, with the sun turning red and reflecting off the clouds. Took 11 minutes to get down according to my Neptune. I just hung out in my holding pattern until I got down to my usual approach altitude.

Looking out to the horizon, I saw a passenger jet 20-30 miles off, doing his approach to DIA, and I'm pretty sure I was higher than him!

All in all a very cool experience. Probably not one I'm going to repeat until summer rolls back around again, though!

All in all a very cool experience. Probably not one I'm going to repeat until summer rolls back around again, though!

Dress for sucess, and you can do them anytime you want. I guess when it get's 'really' cold, you won't want to, but a sweatshirt and a pair of gloves can goa long way.

I know a guy who takes a pair of big puffy winter gloves with him tucked into his jumpsuit. You can't 'jump' with them because you couldn't feel your handles, but he puts them on after opening and making sure he has a good canopy.

Another tip, you don't need to hold your toggles the whole time. Keeping your arms up is tiring, and will drain the blood from your hands/arms. Point your canopy in the right direction, then release your toggles and let your arms hang at your sides. Watch your location, and make turns as needed, but you can do them with a rear riser or by just grabbing the outside of the toggle (no need to get your hand in there every time). If your hands are still chilly, tuck them inbetween your rig and you lower back, it's warm back there and out of the wind. Make sure you get back in your toggles once you get down to 3k or so, to fly the rest of the descent in a 'normal' fashion.

Yeah, I've been wearing skintight gloves for a while now just because my hands were getting scratched so often. So my hands didn't get as cold as they could have! But it was still pretty chilly! Just a little wind protection goes a long way! If I were going to do a lot of them in the winter, I think I'd want a full-face helmet too!

I try to do at least one altitude hop and pop every time I am at the DZ - the view is amazing, its a great way To really learn your canopy and its really a blast when you get a buddy or 4 and play follow the leader or do some CRW UnderArmor and windproof gloves really help a lot in the colder months. I even wear a facemask during the winter since I prefer an open face helmet.